At the opening scene, the singer in the band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, is Janis Joplin, before going on to her solo career. Also in the film is Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead. The film is set in San Francisco, during the psychedelic rock era, home of these bands.
Music at the Hospital Fundraiser features the real Janis Joplin, making a brief singing appearance near the beginning of this film.
The studio proposed Robert Redford for the part of "David," but Richard Lester held out for Richard Chamberlain, just as he held out for George C. Scott as "Archie," rather than the Warner Bros. suggestion of either Paul Newman or James Garner.
The radical editing techniques employed by the film were the subject of many angry exchanges between director Richard Lester and Rudi Fehr, the Hollywood veteran who was, by then, the head of the Warner Bros. Editing Department. Lester had right of final cut in his contract, and exercised this right despite constant pressure. Later, he was very proud of having received a very detailed letter of congratulation on the editing of the film from David Lean, who, before becoming a director, had been one of the world's foremost film editors.